Fearless

Can't Get a Break

Chapter Twenty-One: Can't Get a Break

"So, he's coming here? After the baby is born?" Rebekah asked Charlie. She had just explained to everyone what Jared had told her the night before.

"Yes, it seems so." Charlie breathed out. There were bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, her hair was messy, she looked very tired.

"Why don't we let Charlie take a nap, we'll continue this conversation once she has gotten some sleep and some food." I said. I put my hand on her back and led Charlie out of the library and off to her room.

"Thank you," she mumbled as we walked. "I couldn't sleep last night, not at all. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Jared, I saw the hate, the anger in his eyes when he used to hurt me. If he takes my baby, he'll do the same to the child." Charlie said.

"I know, Char. That's why we're going to make sure he doesn't even get close," I cooed to her. Charlie plopped down on her bed and curled into a ball under the covers. "Get some rest, Charlie. We can't have you exhausted. It's bad for the baby." Charlie smiled and closed her eyes.

"Wake me up when we have news from Actaeon, alright?" she said breezily.

"Can do, Charlie." I closed the door quietly behind me and went back upstairs.

***

"Hello, again." Actaeon projected as he struggled through the front door. Slung over his shoulder was what looked like a body bag. "A little help?" he asked. Aaron and I hurried to his aid. Actaeon looked a little banged up. His lip was split, his cheek was bruised and so was his eye, he was limping slightly and he flinched when we took the body bag from him. Aaron grabbed it by the front and I got it by the back. We carefully inched our way down the stairs, careful not to bang the bag on anything.

"Um, what the hell is in this?" Aaron asked him. We got down the stairs and continued through the front room.

"Clarence." Actaeon said simply. Aaron almost dropped the front of the bag.

"What?! You put Clarence in a body bag?" he asked Actaeon. "Did you kill him or something?"

"Not in the slightest, I knocked him out and thought it would be easier if I carried him inside this way." Actaeon explained.

"So you just happened to have a body bag with you?" Sam asked him. Actaeon rolled his eyes.

"I'm a hunter. We have certain protocols we have to follow when hunting. Once we kill our target we take the carcass back to headquarters in a body bag, it's less suspicious than hauling around a gianormous dead wolf." Actaeon said, as if he was annoyed. I shivered involuntarily. Aaron and I lifted the bag onto one of the tables in the library.

"Alright, Aaron and I will go tie him up in the dungeons. Rebekah, I suggest you patch him up. It seems as though he wasn't unscathed." I told her. She nodded and hurried off to find a first aid kit.

"Michael, tie him up heavily. And make sure that you lock everything. I mean everything. He did this to me, imagine what he can do to restraints." I nodded in understanding. Aaron grabbed the body bag and I grabbed the other side. We carried him over to where the entrance to the training room, dungeons and utility rooms. We went down the right staircase.

"What do you think would happen if I 'accidentally' bashed his skull in?"Aaron asked me as we went down the stairs. I ignored him.

"I would like to think that you have more self control than that," I said. Aaron sighed at me. We reached the end of the stairs. I peered through the long, dark, damp hallway.

Each cell had bars coated in wolf saliva, which is toxic to hunters. There were cells lining each side of the hall. A wretched stink found it's way to my nose, as I breathed in my eyes started to water from the foulness of the smell.

"What is that smell?" Aaron asked me. We passed by a cell that had a very old looking skeleton. "I think it might be the dead guy to your right," he said. As we passed him the smell got worse, than got thinner. "Yeah, it's definitely him."

We made it to the end of the hallway. The last cell looked clean, and fairly new. "Why don't we put him in the cell with the dead guy?" Aaron asked me. I shook my head. Aaron sighed again. I made him hold Clarence upright while I opened the cell. There were six different kinds of locks I had to undo before I could open the barred door. Aaron dragged Clarence inside. I followed him.

We got him out of the bag and set him up in the metal chair that was bolted to the concrete floor. We used chains coated in the same substance as the bars and locked him to the chair. A sizzling noise came from Clarence's skin that touched the chains. "You might want to frisk him, so that he doesn't have anything." I told Aaron.

"Can't we just leave him in here naked?" Aaron asked as he began to feel up Clarence's ankles.

"No, now quit suggesting things like that." I snapped at him. Even though I couldn't see his face, I knew Aaron rolled his eyes at me. Once we was done, we had gotten a various array of knives, car keys, his phone, and a picture of his mother. Aaron left the cell first and waited by the open door. I stared down at the little picture.

"Come on, Michael." he whined. I dropped the picture, left the cell and locked the six locks before Aaron and I headed back up to the library.

***

"So, your psychotic, abusive ex boyfriend-" Charlie cut Actaeon off.

"Husband," she corrected.

"Your psychotic, abusive ex husband is coming back to take your child, and he doesn't care if you raise the baby with him or not?" Actaeon asked, making sure he was right.

"Yup." Charlie said as he leaned back in her chair. She was balancing a cup of steaming hot coffee on the top of her belly.

"And you're not going to get a head start on him?" he asked her. Charlie shook her head.

"That's what he's expecting me to do. He's trying to provoke me into attacking. But we're going to be smart about this. We're going to inform his pack members of what he's planning, and convince them to join us against him. Some will come over easily, others... not so much. He won't know what we're doing. And then we'll outnumber him, and the inevitable fight will be an easy, casualty free one." Charlie explained.

"You really cannot get a break, can you?" Actaeon asked, exasperated.

"No, we can't." Charlie agreed.